Lying across the San Francisquito Creek and just to the north and west of its bigger, brasher neighbor Palo Alto, Menlo Park is the epitome of upscale suburban Silicon Valley living. Bounded roughly by Highways 101 and 280 and the cities of Palo Alto, Atherton, and Redwood City, Menlo Park is as well-manicured as it is wooded.

Apart from its natural beauty, Menlo Park’s denizens are proud, and rightly so, of its school system, which include the eponymous Menlo Park Elementary School District and the Las Lomitas School District (both of which it generously shares with Atherton) and the Sequoia Union High School District for the older students.

The shopping district centers around Santa Cruz Ave from El Camino Real to University Drive and boasts furniture stores, upscale salons, a toy store, numerous high-end restaurants (including The Left Bank), a wonderful 70’s vintage breakfast hangout named Anne’s Coffee shop (where one devotee has taken the time to upload a Youtube video), and Drager’s, which performs the amazing feat of making Whole Foods look like an inexpensive Safeway clone. Santa Cruz Ave is pretty quiet after 8:00pm, a sure sign that Stanford students prefer the glitz and glamor of Palo Alto’s University Ave.

While Palo Alto boasts the world-class university Stanford, Menlo Park’s contribution to Silicon Valley’s unique entrepreneur-laden business ecosystem is the venture capitalist heaven Sand Hill Road, an otherwise nondescript stretch of road running from El Camino Real to Highway 280.

The neighborhoods to the north and west of Menlo Park — Fair Oaks, Flood Park, and the Willows — are where you’ll find the city’s starter homes adjacent to Highway 101, with prices for a 1400 sq ft, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home starting in the mid-$700,000’s. Prices rise rapidly each block south and east of the highway, with the nicer and larger homes deep in the Willows running a tidy $1.6 million.

The Menlo Oaks neighborhood, bounded roughly by Bay, Willow, Middlefield, and Ringwood, boasts some of the largest homes and lots in this area of meandering streets and wonderfully old and large Oak trees. Crossing Middlefield, you come to the Allied Arts/Downtown neighborhood which includes the Allied Arts Guild. Further west brings you to the West Menlo and Alameda neighborhoods.

Tags: Alameda, Atherton, Fair Oaks, Flood Park, Menlo Park, Real estate, Redwood City, Stanford, West Menlo, Willows

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